Frank commentary from an unretired call girl

Original Sin

The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought. – Emma Goldman

As I have often pointed out, many of the beliefs presented as “political positions” these days are actually religions, and that includes those which sell themselves as “scientific” or “atheist”. Any organized group which insists on “rigid adherence to a morality and interpretation of reality…derived entirely from knowledge revealed in sacred scriptures by [its] founders…[and] must be accepted unquestioningly by adherents” is a religion, no matter what it calls itself or whether it has a definable deity; it is based in faith, not science or logic, and any attempt to understand and deal with it as anything other than a religion is doomed to failure. This is why the “sex trafficking” myth is so pernicious; its adherents believe in it just as Christians believe in the divinity of Jesus, and no weight of evidence is sufficient to convince them otherwise.

Then on February 28th, the anti-whore crusade experienced a major setback when funding to the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons was sharply reduced as part of more general (but still extremely superficial) cuts in US government spending. For a short while it looked as though the Trafficking Victims Protection Act might not be re-authorized at all, but at the last minute it was added by Senator Patrick Leahy as a rider to the deceptively-named Violence Against Women Act of 2013, whose passage (despite hysterical claims by whitebread feminists) was a political certainty. While this extended the unnatural life of the War on Whores until 2017 (note that date), one wouldn’t know it from this article by Janice Shaw Crouse and Brenda Zurita of the conservative Christian group Concerned Women for America, which clearly reveals the true sin-punishing motive behind the “anti-trafficking” cult:

Do senators and representatives even know…[that the bill] they just voted for…included an amendment with egregious problems[?] The two worst ones are draconian cuts to the…TIP Office…and the…decriminalization of prostitution for minors…The once vaunted TIP Office is now on its way to becoming nothing more than white noise…Ambassador-at-Large John Miller fought hard to protect the office from attempts to dilute its authority and its mission to hold countries accountable in their efforts to end human trafficking through prosecutions and victim protections…[and] the U.S. became the world leader in ending modern-day slavery. Leahy’s…amendment hands the regional bureaus of the State Department the means to undermine the significance of the annual Trafficking in Persons report…The TIP Office was established to be the central location to direct the United States government’s anti-trafficking efforts. By dividing that authority, real leadership will be impossible …[the amendment also] slashes the TIP Office funding by more than 70 percent from $7 million to $2 million. This will make it impossible for the TIP Office to fulfill its statutory mandate as the agency responsible for leading and coordinating the Federal government’s anti-trafficking efforts. Without a strong TIP Office, the TVPA will never be faithfully implemented and trafficking issue decisions will inevitably be subordinated to such traditional agency concerns as maintaining good relations with foreign governments…

On the domestic side…senators and representatives voted to endorse the decriminalization of prostitution for minors in the United States. Did they do this because there are many, many minors being arrested for prostitution? According to the latest Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports, there were only 763 arrests of minors…for “prostitution and commercialized vice” crimes in 2011…the DOJ will encourage states to prohibit the charging or prosecution of a minor for engaging in or attempting to engage in prostitution. While this sounds like a compassionate thing to do, it may actually lead to an increase in the number of minors in prostitution…gangs are using prostitution to make money…While pimping would still be illegal…imagine what will happen to minors who think that prostituting is a good way to make money…How many of them will join up with a gang or a pimp to sell their bodies and then facing the horrific reality of the decision…Many will see their pimps as their boyfriend [sic] and will not self-identify as a victim [sic] of sex trafficking. When law enforcement does not have the power to arrest and through that arrest get the minor into a rehabilitation program, minors may remain trapped. When the judicial system no longer has the authority to keep victims in rehabilitation programs through an arrest charge, the victims will be able to walk away from a shelter anytime they choose. Most will walk right back into the arms of their pimps…

One can practically see these busybodies’ faces turning purple and the veins standing out on their necks. While their anger over the partial defunding and potential marginalization of their Holy Mission is understandable, their real apoplexy is reserved for the idea that without the threat of being manhandled and caged by the Soldiers of the Righteous, thousands of junior Jezebels may voluntarily enter into sex work and not even see that they are helpless victims of dirty, dirty sex!!! And what’s more, without the cudgel of law, girls will be able to make decisions for themselves rather than being forced to endure brainwashing designed to convince them of their sinful, fallen state!

The increasing prevalence of articles like this one, which so transparently emphasize Christian dogma of sexual sin, guilt and punishment, are a welcome development to those who support sex worker rights. The more closely “trafficking” rhetoric is linked to anti-sex, anti-choice Christian demands such as criminalization of abortion and suppression of casual sex, the more non-Christians and moderate Christians will be repelled from it, and the faster the coalition which has driven the hysteria for a decade will collapse.

47 Responses

Sorry, science and atheism aren’t religions. They are the antidote to religion.

Secondly, one wonders, the Salvation Army (A religious organization) is one of the big anti-trafficking campaigners, Yet one of the biggest groups of kids that end up on the streets, having to make a living as they can, are lesbian, gay and trans kids whose parents throw them out. Yet the Sallies are anti-gay.

You’re right, in that this is just another one of our societies endless sex panics.

Sorry, science and atheism aren’t religions. They are the antidote to religion.

Depends on who’s practicing it. For instance – I will submit that the whole Global Warming Hysteria IS a religion. It has a Pope, and he is infallible – his name is Al Gore.

It has sacred texts … “Earth In the Balance” – written by the Pope – who is NOT a scientist.

The Pope is RICH … he has a net worth of $300 Million Dollars – all of which came from his “disciples” and “believers”.

It has it’s own ways of propagating propaganda and ensuring the truth doesn’t come out … just as all religions have … witness East Anglia and “Hide the Decline”.

It has it’s own “evangelists” … along with Pope Al – the Main Stream Media.

Just as “sinful homosexuals” were blamed for the scourge of AIDS – Global Warming Hysteria blames everything on humans and global warming. This includes hurricanes … this includes SNOWSTORMS or extremely cold weather. Earthquakes. In one case – a reporter tried to blame an approaching asteroid in space on Global Warming. Just like religion – it’s full of inconsistencies and things that do not make sense but have to be taken on faith.

It attempts to “bully” and keep the dissidents in line. In some cases – meteorologists and climatologists have been excommunicated from the Church Of Global Warming (i.e. FIRED) for not towing the church line on Global Warming – even though they themselves are equal in scientific knowledge to those who excommunicate them.

Just as Christians call non-Christians … “Unbelievers” … Just as Jews call non-Jews “Gentiles” … and Muslims call non-Muslims “Infidels” … the followers of the Church of Global Warming call those who disagree with their religion … “Deniers”.

It’s a church – maybe not that organized but definitely a religion and it’s infested with “scientists”.

So yes – science can be turned into a form of religion unless scientists get a grip on the situation. However, when the money is good – scientists will whore themselves with the best of them to get at it.

Also – it’s like a religion in that it’s followers deny that “scientists” are human beings that are sometimes acting with bad motives. This is much as any Christian Church does in affirming that their “evangelists” are above reproach. We KNOW that evangelists are capable of every human flaw known to man – stealing from followers, lying, sexual transgressions when they preach against them from the pulpit.

Scientists are NO different. They are human beings and therefore imperfect. They are capable of crime. They are capable of deception for monetary gain.

But … followers of the Church of Global Warming insist their scientists are as pure as the driven snow. Even after the East Anglia “scientists” were caught red handed in perpetrating lies and obfuscating truth … the followers of the Church defended them just as Jimmy Swaggart’s followers defended him when he was busted for his sexual transgressions.

Hmmm. Well, you are a smart man Krulac, but you sure as hell are not a climate scientist. Frankly you sound a lot more like a member of the “climate change denier” religion than any of the scientists I have heard. All the good scientists I know are pain in the ass skeptics about everything. I second Dave’s comment below; the popular media inevitably simplify and sensationalize what scientists say. And don’t forget that there are plenty of powerful institutions who have a vested interest in minimizing the possible consequences to protect their own interests, and they have been very active in spinning this topic.

Climate science has come a long way in the fifty years since Ice Age Coming time. There IS a general consensus among bona fide climate scientists that global warming is a reality. Many of the notable skeptics among scientists have come around as additional data have accumulated. And there are a LOT of data, from a wide variety of sources. Of course there remains a great deal that is not understood about the whys, wherefores and ultimate impacts. My limited understanding from perusing the journals (not from watching TV or listening to Rush Limbaugh) is that the next century will be an interesting one. Nobody really knows how major the changes ultimately will be from this fascinating little human experiment we are accidentally conducting. And thus the question of what, if anything can or should be done remains an open one.

Happily, it still seems much more likely that we may extinct ourselves through conflicts rather than climate catastrophe. Of course, one of the potential costs of major climate change is inciting new conflicts over rapid redistribution of and access to essential resources….

No I’m not a climate scientist – and I’m not an exceptionally smart guy.

I am, however – a EXPERT Bullshit detector. And I call bullshit on the climate scaremongers.

Like this is bullshit …

Climate science has come a long way in the fifty years since Ice Age Coming time.

You’ve exaggerated that timeframe – because the late 70’s was NOT fifty years ago. Why do you exaggerate that? Time Magazine published a famous cover “The Coming Ice Age” in 1974. The Ice Age Theory continued on into the early 80’s before people got tired of it. In 1988 (only 25 years ago friend) James Hanson, a NASA scientist testified before the U.S. Senate on “climate change” causing the planet to heat up. That’s when all the Global Warming hysteria heated up – and it was due simply to the fact that no one could make any more money or cause fear with an “Ice Age” theory because everyone by then called it … “bullshit”.

It was very convenient for the Church of Global Warming to cast anyone who doubted their ridiculous theories as “deniers” and “closet pawns of the ebil oil companies”. However … though I don’t trust an oil company study neither do I trust one funded by the government. Why should YOU trust any study funded by the government? According to the government – we have a huge human trafficking problem too … THEY’VE DONE STUDIES. Anyone who “denies” the human trafficking epidemic is a “denyer” and probably a closet patron of the pay sex slavery business — SEE HOW THIS WORKS? According to the government – as a Vet, I could be a dangerous right wing extremist … THEY’VE DONE STUDIES! So nope – all this Global Warming stuff funded by a government is bullshit too – just as much as an oil company study.

What I do know is this … if the alarmists are right – there is no reversing this trend. Soooo … why get all worked up about in our remaining days on the planet? Live it up I say!

Dude, Time magazine is not Science. The work that got media hype in the 70s mostly reflected data and ideas of a few from the 60s and even before, so yes, it is fifty years old.The fact that some people continued to parrot those ideas long after they were dead means nothing. After all, Peter Duesberg is still claiming that HIV does not cause AIDS despite thirty years of overwhelming evidence that it does from thousands of different studies and hundreds of independent investigators. If you want to be contrarian, you can always find someone to champion your cause. Of course, most of those studies were funded by one government or another, so by your standards they are not to be trusted. Sorry, give me a break.

This group seemingly, and I believe rightly, disdains the the tripe passed off as reporting by our mass media. Their representation of science is often no more accurate than it is of the main topic of this blog–and nearly as biased. If you want to understand where the science really is, you have to dig a little deeper than the cover of Time.

Everything you say about the “climate change believers” is true — EXCEPT that some of them are really scientists. Real scientists use the scientific method, not the kind of fraud at which (in my opinion) these so-called scientists have been caught red-handed, as detailed in Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion.

Yes I agree with everything you say – not trying to turn the comments thread into a debate on Global Warming – but it’s the most glaring example of “science turned religion” that I can think of. It is very fucking scary just how many parallels you can draw between the Global Warming scare and the religions of the world.

Now – this doesn’t mean that perhaps the Earth isn’t warming. Just as a corrupt religion doesn’t automatically prove there is no God. But … until people decide to sit down and look at the scientific evidence objectively – then I’ll continue to ignore the hyperventilators.

What I get a giggle out of is this notion of “consensus” – as if “consensus” among scientists really means anything tangible. What was the scientific consensus of the shape of the planet before Columbus? What was the scientific consensus on the effects of gravity on mass before Galileo’s Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment?

For that matter – what was the “consensus” on Global Warming in the late ’70’s? I’ll tell you what it was – the consensus was … that we were all about to experience another ICE AGE due to carbon emissions!

What was the scientific consensus of the shape of the planet before Columbus? Round, and about the size we currently think it is. Columbus was badly wrong about the size though. He seems to have really thought that China was roughly where the Americas are. Had he not accidentally run into a new continent, he and all his crews were dead.

What was the scientific consensus on the effects of gravity on mass before Galileo’s Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment? Things fall. They were wrong about the mechanism, but they were correct about the major effects.

Not as practiced in the modern West, they aren’t. Yes, there are true atheists and true skeptics, but for every one of those there are three who still embrace some authority figure and authoritative texts as fervently as any True Believer, not because reason has guided them there but because an authority told them to. The so-called “Atheism Plus” movement is a perfect example; they insist they’re atheists, yet uncritically embrace every stupid belief of neofeminism right down to the whore-hating and support for censorship.

Correct me if I am wrong, but why I think Maggie was trying to point out is that humans have a tendency to put blind faith in anything convenient, regardless of whether it is an organized religion, atheistic organization, or even just popular philosophy.

She was not attempting to sat that science (the study of the universe using the scientific method) and atheism (the lack of belief in theistic dogma) are actually religions (since, by definition, they are not) but that people have a tendency to treat them as if they are (in error).

Yes. Any belief that is held in defiance of evidence, and which relies upon unquestionable authorities and represses dissent, functions exactly like a religion both psychologically and socially. They’re all faiths, no matter what type of dogma they embrace.

It occurred to me a while back that you are more likely to be respected by the American establishment if you are a fierce Atheist who believes that sex is nasty, dirty, evil, immoral and wrong than you will if you are a member of some offshoot of Christianity that believes that sex is OK (Like Family International, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_International ). (In other words, sex hatred is necessary and occasionally even sufficient.)

Still, I’d characterize this more as superstition than full blown religion.

Scientism is arguably a religion, and psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, chiropractic certainly are. Atheism is an alternative not an antidote to religion, and can become a religion when advocates insist that there is proof God doesn’t exist. Militant secularists have all the are no more rational or tolerant than their militant religious counterparts. Secularist in France who have banned the right of girls and women to wear headscarves in schools and university are no more tolerant than the Islamic countries and the Vatican that insist they wear them. In France, secularism replaced Catholicism as the state religion.

Man … I don’t know who you are but I really admire your posts here. Every bit of that is spot on! I’m critical of both atheists and religionists (of any religion really). My daughter goes to a private Catholic school – not because I want her to become Catholic … she goes there because it’s the best school I can put her in (in my area). I don’t care if she becomes a Catholic – but she’s told me she doesn’t want to be Baptised in the Church.

My other daughter – who is almost 30 now, is a true atheist. She grew up exposed to religious types – and she made a concious decision that she would follow a different path. Still – some of her best friends are devoted “believers”.

I know some Atheists who will not associate with religionists at all – just the same as Muslims will not associate with “infidels”. Why is that? What is wrong with exposing people to all points of view? It’s kind of insane. No Muslim “prayer rooms” on public school property – check your religion at the door … but sexual orientation? Ah yah! Bring it on in!! We want to expose people to your point of view on that! LMAO!!

>>”I know some Atheists who will not associate with religionists at all – just the same as Muslims will not associate with “infidels”. Why is that?”

(I think I’m the only atheist here, so I feel like I ought to answer this; it’s a good question)

There are two reasons for this that I’m aware of. The first is simple tribal identity; the religious are the Them to compare to Us. (I don’t like this; I disapprove of tribalism in general) The second is that religious devotion is a decent heuristic for “not terribly thoughtful, probably not worth talking to, may kill brain cells” in the same way that a black man with visible gang tattoos is a decent heuristic for “possibly dangerous, avoid if possible.”

Noting that someone goes through the motions but isn’t particularly devout is also a decent heuristic — but only of conformity, not ignorance.

>>”What is wrong with exposing people to all points of view?”

What’s wrong is that it isn’t a point of view, as in “I like such and such music.” The proposition “God exists and has such-and-such characteristics” is a factual statement subject to analysis. “God exists” has about as much evidence in its favor as the existence of Azathoth, or the idea that there is a tenth planet we haven’t found yet that is made out of chocolate. But you are not likely to find people who argue “well, you can’t *prove* that planet isn’t there, so it’s totally reasonable for me to believe that it is!” If you met someone who made such a statement, you would probably dismiss them as either stupid or insane. The god hypothesis is just as silly; militant atheists are just making a point of dismissing it, publicly, in the same way.

(it is worth distinguishing between the capital-A Atheist tribe and the lowercase-a atheists who merely believe God doesn’t exist. The difference is similar to that between libertarians and Libertarians.)

Thank you 🙂 I’m not opposed to anyone indulging their irrational beliefs, as a Catholic I indulge in mine, I just object to religious militants and militant secularist forcing their views on others or objecting to others from voicing their or even observing the tenants of their faith. I think people who are frightened about being exposed to others views are fanatics. There are a lot of fanatical vegetarians.I’m a demi-vegetarian (I eat fish) myself because I don’t think it’s healthy to eat meat regularly but I’m not extremist. I’ll happily cook meat dishes and eat meat dishes if I’m at someone’s house or a restaurant. I can’t stand fanatical vegetarians or vegans who object to others eating meat or feel the need to lecturer me about wearing leather or hunting.

“Then on February 28th, the anti-whore crusade experienced a major setback when funding to the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons was sharply reduced as part of more general (but still extremely superficial) cuts in US government spending.” a confusing sentence, Maggie, and I’m an atheist

I have religious beliefs. They are intuitive and pragmatic rather than rational. I maintain them for my own benefit and don’t expect anyone else to believe them. I am also a skeptic, in the older sense of the word. While I might believe something passionately, I am always willing to consider the arguments against it.

I personally believe that sex work is a benefit to society. I have had people get mad at me for that position, but I have yet to hear a convincing argument against it.

That’s exactly how I am, Tom. I do have spiritual beliefs, but they’re personal and I don’t expect anyone else to believe them. Furthermore, I recognize them as irrational and don’t try to portray them as anything else, nor do I believe public policy should be based on them. What I find terribly amusing is that I (who don’t identify as atheist) am more skeptical about my own irrational beliefs than many self-avowed atheists are about theirs.

I completely agree, it was the Christian puritanical movement behind prohibition and the white slavery (sex trafficking) laws. Then they changed their focus to the plight of drug addicted whores and drug pusher pimps. Now they’ve moved back to their old hunting ground sex slavery. The problem is that a lot of people will assume good faith on the behalf of NGOs and social workers who work with the “victims”, my experience dealing with both is that they are self-serving, untrustworthy and blinkered, and whilst it pays to offer support services to prostitutes there is incentive to treat prostitutes as victims.

i beleive that the worst thing after theese horrible laws that this type of morality causes is the stigma on sex workers and i dont mean that the worst thing to happen is hiding your job but when the stigma becomes internalised.i think its one thing to conceal a part of your life for fear of misunderstanding and another thing entirely to feel ashamed of yourself.i see it on my gay friends as well.some dont want to tell their parents for fear of their reaction but they are totally at peace with themselves.but when they actually beleive there is something wrong with them,then they are full of self hatred,which can lead to catastrophic behavior.especially when the sex worker is still young(like 18)things can get very confusing.i actually thank god that teens nowadays are so much more desentisized to sex thanks to the media(the same media,though that present sex work as horrible but their cheesy shows and advertisements as acceptable).there are drawbacks to that but i honestly feel that the less of a big deal we make out of sex the better.the ideal for me would be to think of it as a human need like food that needs to be fullfilled, which can also be a loving activity but not nescessarily.

I once dated a provider who enjoyed her work probably as much as Maggie did. However, I remember having long talks with her where she would lament the fact that she enjoyed the job – because she felt it was abnormal and something must be wrong with her to be able to enjoy it as much as she did.

Unfortunately I was never able to convince her otherwise and this led to her making some drastic changes in her life that I don’t think really “worked” for her. She was in her early 20’s though, as was I, so she really didn’t have the maturity that Maggie and others have.

I disagree with the broad definition of religion. For example, I don’t think it’s appropriate to call militant atheists religious. Rather, I prefer to call them irrational and dogmatic. Strangely, as an atheist myself, I stopped attending atheist clubs and functions because the dogma was too much for me. So many people considered religion the root of all evil and were ignorant of the political motives behind the Crusades, grrr.

That said, I am not immune to irrational thinking and bias myself, but I like to think I am improving and becoming a better person as a result.

Maggie, you’ve actually managed to surprise me this time. I thought I knew all their was about VAWA (and it is all bad, on grounds not related to sex work), but the fact that the neofeminists who wrote it are so arrogant, they are willing to alienate the independent women too, suggests that their reach may be starting to exceed their grasp, and there is yet hope.

Why do I hate VAWA? Here are the major points of the Act as I know them.

1. “There is an epidemic of violence by men against women.” (And the
connotation that women hitting men either never happens or is rightful.)
Simply not true and never has been: this is propaganda by man-haters and
the shelter/”rescue” industry.

2. “Hitting a woman can never be justified.” In fact, all the common
situations that can possibly justify hitting someone else (they hit you
first, they stole from or threatened you, etc.) are morally as good
against a housemate as anyone else. This is not to say that hitting back
is a good idea; it almost never is, and not only because it can be
against the law.

3. “Women don’t make false accusations.” False; in fact it’s very
common, all the more now that this law allows them to lock you out of
your home and take away your civil rights without even having convicted
you of anything first.

It’s unconstitutional for the federal government to be making laws on
this topic at all (not an enumerated power).

The law gives tax money to political advocacy groups (the kind that
promote the myths of points 1-3) in the guise of “rescuing” women.
That’s a first amendment violation.

The law forces state and local police to adopt policies of “always
arrest someone” (whenever there’s a DV report) and “don’t let accusers
recant or refuse to testify (threaten them with prosecution for
perjury).” This violates due-process rights of both the accuser and
accused, and imposes unconstitutional federal control on local police.

It’s unconstitutional for them to strip a man of his gun rights without
first convicting him of a crime (anything less isn’t due process). If
the loss of guns were only temporary while pending trial for assault,
that might be acceptable.

In short, by this one act, Congress not only shredded their oaths, they
declared war against men as a class. Why are we not fighting back?

Isn’t there already a law … Lautenberg Amendment (?) which specifies that persons (i.e. “men”) convicted of misdemeanor domestic abuse cannot possess a firearm? I thought this also applied to anyone who was a cop or other law enforcement official. Can’t carry a firearm in the performance of their duties if they were convicted of misdemeanor domestic abuse.

I’ve always said I’ll never hit a woman – and I never have. Then again – no woman has ever given me reason to hit her really either. I used to think that men who hit women were the lowest scum on the planet – lower than whale shit. But … I’m 6’2″ and 235 pounds. I would look ridiculous hitting most women and would get “tased” by the first Cop who caught me – regardless of whether or not I had a justified reason to hit her. Smaller guys though – well, I can see them maybe hitting a gal for the right reasons.

That’s precisely what I was pondering after reading some of the earlier comments last night. Of course people are going to be turned off from listening when it seems like the only people talking are the ‘hyperventilators’ who scream that doom is coming in one hundred years if we don’t make ridiculously complex and sweeping changes this very second. On the other hand, if experts were able to present their proven hypotheses dispassionately and rationally (‘here is how pollution is affecting you right now, this is why it’s not a good thing, and here are some hopefully simple ways to fix it…’), I’d bet the chances of improvement would increase.

“which clearly reveals the true sin-punishing motive behind the “anti-trafficking” cult”
This is also the motive behind “abstinence only” sex education and other such idiocies. At the bottom lies the real motivation: spite.

Prostitution exists because of poverty, almost each major city in the US has thousands of homeless teens. NY is in need of 80,000 beds immediately to house homeless youths, so once these homeless teens enter sex work to survive, we arrest and rescue them, lock them up in faith based shelter so we can try to convince them that the are victims and the teen is DETAINED until they are willing to testify against those who helped them survive. It makes no sense that we can’t find beds for teens until after they have been rescued from the sex industry. It makes more sense to hose the teens so they are not forced to turn to sex work to survive. Its ironic that sex workers can’t access any services unless they say they are a victim or are willing to exit the industry. They use to get 7 million a year, to rescue under 400 kids, and then we also spend 250 million a year so law enforcement can stalk adult sex workers. The sad past if they cant seem to polcie even 1% of the sex industry on a good day. Its not REALISTIC to think we can very abolish prostitution, but reducing it could be possible if we helped sex workers escape poverty. Sex workers are not willing to work for slave wages that they can’t possible live on. To learn more about the myths and misconceptions surrounding sex work, please join us athttp://www.coyoteri.org/index.phphttp://www.facebook.com/groups/coyoteri/http://www.policeprostitutionandpolitics.com/http://www.americancourtesans.com

Doesn’t cheap maid services and elisted soldiers also exist because of poverty?

In an ideal world we would provide education and training for the entire population. And maybe even enforce the laws against corruption in DC, wall street, and board rooms so more of us could get out of poverty using that education and training.

But until then, using your body as a way to make money is a viable way out of poverty. I’m a a pacifist, but the money we pay those guys is the only money I consider well spent in the defense budget.

Since becoming an activist I have always got into trouble by arguing against this line that poverty causes sex work. Poverty you can argue causes work full stop but does it force women specifically into prostitution?

People choose sex work for many reasons but not least because it is the better option (again you can argue perhaps out of few options for some). The fact that many choose then to stay in sex work suggests that the work has merit in its own right that offers rewards more than simply financial.

Personally I chose the work because it suited me, gave me pleasure and it was comfortable with my lifestyle and luckily I have been reasonably successful.I have known and still know men and women from very wealthy back grounds and with good educations and well paid jobs who work within the sex industry for a huge variety of reasons.

This is where I mention basic income, aka citizen’s dividend, aka demogrant. It would get rid of “because of poverty” altogether, though not “because she wanted a better lifestyle than she could enjoy on the demogrant alone.”

Supported by (a few) conservatives, by (a few) liberals, and by (a few) who consider themselves outside the left/right spectrum, it’s either the best or worst idea in the history of economics.

Maggie:
I agree that the increasing shrillness and out-there-ness of the trafficking panic is a good sign, although it’s also a case of things getting worse before they get better.

Krulak:
You are proposing a global scientific conspiracy lasting decades. This would be a much bigger conspiracy than, say, hiding a flying saucer which crashed at Roswell or assassinating President Kennedy. It would even be a larger conspiracy than, for instance, what would be necessary for 9/11 to have been an inside job. Depending on which 9/11 story you choose to believe, it was a conspiracy of between thirty and fifty people (this is the official story),* a couple of hundred people (the Bush administration knew it was coming but, deciding that it would be politically advantageous, let it happen),** or a few thousand (the towers were wired with explosives, it was a missile that hit the Pentagon, the military was ordered to stand down, Flight 93 was shot down, etc.).*** 9/11 conspiracy requires only the government of the United States and al-Qaeda to have been in on it (some people want to throw in the UK and Israel because, well just because). For global warming to be a hoax requires dozens of national governments, hundreds of universities, and at least some of the news media (again, in dozens of nations) to be in on it (one could assume that most of the media just goes along without being a knowing part of the conspiracy, but some would have to be in on it). Again, all this would have to have been maintained for decades. This would be on the level of faking the Moon landings**** or evolution being a hoax (which is exactly what creationists claim).

Al Gore isn’t infallible; he can be wrong; in fact he could even lie. But he would have to be a God among Men to pull this off.

.

* Twenty hijackers (one of whom missed his plane), bin Laden, and a dozen or so al-Qaeda people to help with funding and coordinating stuff.

** This is known as LIHOP, meaning Let It Happen On Purpose .

*** This is known as MIHOP, meaning Made It Happen On Purpose .

**** Most Moon Hoax believers don’t realize that multiple governments, not just the US, would have had to have been in on it. Several governments helped the US track the flights, and the Soviet Union pointed antennae at the Moon and would have noticed if the transmissions weren’t coming from there. Why would the Soviets help the Americans fake beating the Soviets in the Moon Race?

[…] seem out of character for an anti-abortion politician, and the “sex trafficking” hysteria is so thoroughly grounded in Protestant Christian morality that the politician Linda Smith, founder of Shared Hope International, once described […]

[…] over “sex trafficking”) is “deeply rooted in Protestant Christianity’s obsession with ‘pure and pious womanhood’, and even when there is no Christian group involved in a prohibitionist scheme the same themes […]

I don’t disagree with the concept that atheism and science are “religions”, a body of “beliefs”. Interestingly, the New Scientist (3 May 2014) had a recent article about atheism—you might think of it as one religion writing about another. Anyway, one of the points was that “atheism” is more complex than many consider, particularly why people are atheists. They describe four general groups:

1) Mind-blind—can’t comprehend religion

2) Apathetic—can’t be bothered

3) InCREDulous—isolated from extreme acts of religion

4) analytic—explicitly reject religion.

The CRED refers to “credibility-enhancing displays” of religion, costly and extravagant acts of faith including fasting, self-flagellation and martyrdom.

The article also has data about increasing rates of secularism in the western world; even in the US, this has considerably increased over the last generation, with around 30% of the young being secular.

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